Brooke Smith
12/01/2010, DELTAVILLE, VA

Wednesday December 1, 2010
I have wondered why my 55amp alternator never puts out more than about 20amps. I have turned lights and all kinds of inverter loads and the amp- meter never reads more than about 25 amps. SO, I traced the alternator's output path.
Looks like at the alternator, there is a #8 size wire that had a failing crimp connection. Fixed that and no change in amperage out of the alternator. So where does the other end of the wire go? The other end of the alternator wire went to the wiring closet behind the helm to a screw terminal. The other side of the screw terminal went to the dash amp-meter with #10 wire (30amp capacity!). The other side of the amp-meter was wired with #10 wire down to another screw terminal and then to the common side of the battery switch. I have not been able to measure the resistance of this path of about 20 - 30'. But, That is a crazy path to get back to either house or starting battery. Kind of backwards going from the switch towards the batteries. I will probably purchase a shunt type amp-meter and wire the alternator to the starting solenoid battery connection. This would be less than 3' and would have basically no loss from the alternator to the starting battery. Of course the cool Blue Sea Systems 120 A SI* Automatic Charging Relay (ACR) will take care of charging when the alternator is operating and isolating the house battery when the motor is cut off and the alternator stops.

General

Comments [0] | | More

Brooke Smith
11/15/2010, Stingray Point Area Chesapeake Bay

Sunday the 14th of November, 2010
Better fishing. Fished the famous 2R area off Stingray Point from about 10:45 until 4:45. Caught a 19" at 2 PM and another 20" at 4pm . Jeff Buck and Bob Smith were the fishermen and I ran the boat and fished some. I believe Bob Smith wound in one and Jeff the other. Great weather and calm out there too. Lots of boats and few fish reported on the radio.
Boat ran great. I ran it wide open out there 2500 RPM. We trolled at 600 750 RPMs until 4:45 we we ran back in. The Lehman didn't mind the long troll at all. Just a great day.

General

Comments [0] | | More

Brooke Smith
11/04/2010, DELTAVILLE, VA

The new +12VDC terminal block.

General

Comments [0] | | More

Brooke Smith
11/04/2010, DeLTAVILLE, VA

The new Blue Sea Systems Buss -12VDC

General

Comments [0] | | More

Brooke Smith
11/04/2010, DELTAVILLE, VA

Tuesday & Wednesday the 2nd & 3rd days of November, 2010
More wiring notes. I just could not wait any longer and ordered two blue sea systems busbars to replace the negative DC connections in my main DC panel and the Flybridge terminal block. I have been amazed that my DC stuff wired through the DC breakers has continued to operate with the green stuff growing out of the main negative lead going to the house battery. The house battery is at the aft end and I guess it's a 25' run from the battery to the wiring panel. I replaced the negative cable terminal at the battery a while back. But the other end of this #6 (I'm guessing the gauge as the black cable has no markings) black cable had a very small ring connector that connected to a terminal black in the electric panel. I'm sorry I didn't take a before picture. But the terminal block is one of those types that has looping connecters that connect screw to screw to cascade the -12 VDC. This is the connection point for ALL attached devices (lights , pumps etc) for the negative non-switched side of the house battery. Of course some screws had triple wires under the screws as there were not enough screws for all the -12 V connections. I installed a 20 screw buss bar made by Blue Sea Systems along side the existing screw terminal. I transitioned each wire to the new buss and straightened out crossed over wires and neatened the jumbled mess with velcro wire ties. I then cut off the corroded green terminal connector of the negative battery cable. I connected a very nice cable lug to the negative supply cable and connected it to the main terminal of the new buss. I actually think the 12v lights are brighter!
Now on up to the flybridge terminal strip. I did take before and after pictures of the wiring under the fly bridge. As with all older boats, many radios, lorans, depth finders have been installed over the years. This leads to a rats nest as most people do not disconnect the old wiring of the device they are replacing. Well, if it's dead I remove the wire for sanity. I leave what wiring is relevant. Under the flybridge they had one screw terminal block for everything positive or negative 12v hooked up there on the flybridge. There were 12 screw terminals for connections to connect:
Temperature gauge
Oil pressure gauge
Oil pressure alarm
Tachometer
Running lights port & starboard
Dash lights
Search light
VHF
GPS
Depth finder
Radar
Compass light
25 connections if Im remembering correctly !!!!
The start, stop and horn were in a separate wiring harness. So, they were not involved with the screw terminal block. To make things much worse, the existing screw terminal block was located directly behind the 3 hydraulic steering lines. This was not only awkward for viewing and using a screwdriver with the screw terminals, but the hydraulic lines are at ground -12VDC. So, you had to cut off the battery supply or risk causing a spark / fuse blowing episode when the screw driver came in contact with a +12VDC screw and the shaft hit one of the hydraulic lines. And, no I didn't discover that fact with a spark!
I replaced the existing single terminal block with two new blocks. I put all the -12VDC connections on a Blue Sea Busbar. (Blue Sea Systems www.bluesea.com makes top notch marine electrical devices. ) I mounted the buss bar well to the port side of the hydraulic lines. I intended to reuse the existing terminal block for all other connections. I discovered cracks in the block, and off to my favorite Hurds Hardware in Deltaville. They can get anything marine and compete successfully with West Marine. They had a 10 screw terminal in stock and that's I mounted on the starboard side of the hydraulic lines to handle all the +12VDC connections. I labeled all the source and load wires and neatened the wires up with various cable management. Take a look at the BEFORE picture with 3 connectors under some screws; and then the AFTER picture with two separate terminal blocks.
Next thing will be better +12VDC to the 12V breakers.

General

Comments [0] | | More

Brooke Smith
10/22/2010, Home

October 21, 2010
So, October 15th, 2010 we owned our boat one full year and discovered we have only put 98 hrs on the engine. Yep, not many travels to foreign locations. But, we did do lots of small runs. The boat is in good shape now mechanically for distance traveling.
I have been looking at the wiring panels as of late and they are wired very non-conventionally to say the least. The 12V panel is pretty straight forward. But the negative buss is awfully corroded and I have ordered an new 20 screw buss from Defender. At least with the DC wiring they stuck with black wire color being negative/ground. I wrote extensively about the inadequate ground wire sizes and how the DC breakers are connected one to the next with #10 wire.
But what has really been crazy is when I decided to add a 120 VAC socket on the fly bridge. I wired it standard Black hot, white neutral and green ground. But, When I went to the AC panel and was going to add this to the breaker labeled "receptacles" I was befuddled. All the wires at the breakers were red in color except for the hot water heater. That breaker had a white wire coming out of it!. So OK in 1979 they decided to use red for hot 120VAC . So guess what black is? It's neutral!! I figured I was seeing things and then decided to check the sockets with a polarity checker. MOST, but not all indicated the hot and neutral were reversed. Yes. The guy wiring the sockets figured black was hot. So, I corrected all the sockets wiring the black neutral to where the normal white would go and red to the hot side. There is little documentation from my Albin documents. I do have a wiring diagram that shows the breakers but does not mention the color wire at the breakers except 1 breaker. The hot water heater indicates that that breaker has a white wire going to the hot side of the hot water heater. This is disturbing. At least the green is ground and if whatever color wire is hot wears through to some metal case the green will offer a path a trip the breaker. I cannot follow the logic of those wiring technicians from 1979 in Taiwan.

The later installed 2nd shore power cord was wired properly when the air conditioning was installed.

I would really like to change all the wire to marine standards. But, for now the sockets are safe.

General

Comments [1] | | More